


Haunted

by Hellionesque



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Blood and Gore, Dissociation, F/F, Ghosts - Freeform, Lots and Lots of Body Horror, M/M, Medical stuff, Morgue Typical Violence, Mourges, Police, Self Harm, You Could Say This Is Similar To Parasite Eve But Only Slightly, abuse mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 15:44:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4925506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hellionesque/pseuds/Hellionesque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens after death is the greatest mystery to ever face mankind. People look to Heaven or Hell for answers, and we ask our gods for mercy against it. There are few who have ever heard from them.</p>
<p>This is their story, and it will change the way the living see the dead forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Constant Cycle

**Author's Note:**

> Nice! First fic!  
> So, hello. This is my first time uploading a story here. Critiques welcome! I'll be trying to update this story once a week, but I might forget. Thanks!

Clouds cover the sky, and a thick feeling of tiredness covers him like a smothering blanket. It was a… Wednesday? He thinks it is. It's rather late already, the thought crossing his mind that he should get up. Maybe… he sweeps a hand through his dark brown hair, sitting up in the small bed secluded to the far back of the room. He pauses, listening to the sound of cars and other large automotives below, before swinging his legs to the side and walking towards the window, which was still slightly left open. Rain drips down the blurry, fogged over pane, which he clears with one hand, to stare into the brick wall right in front of it.

A gentle sigh overcomes him as he shuts the rickety window, turning back to his one room apartment. Shinji stares into the darkened room, his eyes focusing on the far wall as he leans back on the wet pane of glass, the water soaking through the back of his shirt. He didn’t care much. It’s not like he was going out today anyways… He moves forwards once again, walking through the room to slip on a pair of old sandals and pull on a threadbare coat. He didn’t have much money these days for things like clothes. Not since he left his job. Or graduated from high school, for that matter.

He unlocks the door to the small apartment, not caring what he looks like as he was only going to check the mail. It was most likely only going to be filled with emptiness and casual disappointment, though he had actually applied for a job around a week before at a nearby mortuary. He had originally been aimlessly wandering the streets, stepping through the puddles that always covered them, when he spied a ‘Help Wanted’ sign taped to the front of the drab building. The job seemed innocent enough once he met with the lady at the front desk, who had dark, somewhat purple hair. He recalls their conversation as he walks down the stairs…

 

“So you… you want to work? Here?” the woman behind the counter looks at the short, scraggly looking person behind the desk, “I assume you saw the sign outside, then.”

“Y-yes, I, uh… I don’t exactly have any stable income.” he looks at her for a few seconds before turning away, looking to the vase of fake silk flower to his right, which were covered in a thin layer of dust.  
  
“And you want to work here? If you’re wondering, kid, this is an opening for a night janitorial session. You’ll be pulling some late hours.” she stares at him, chewing on the back of a black pen, which already appeared to be mauled by her white, straight teeth.  
  
Shinji looks between her and a poster for a local funeral home behind her. “I don’t have a problem with that. I, um, don’t… get much sleep anyways.” he looks back to her, and she was giving him a look of some unnamable emotion. _She's probably bored of me talking to her,_ he contemplates, as she leans over with the pen still between her teeth, grabbing the handle of a filing cabinet and pulling it out, before flipping through multiple manila folders. Finally, now that she was distracted, he got to look around the room, which was lit with a couple fluorescent lights across the ceiling. One was flickering on the far side of the room, where he sees a slight movement under it. He quickly turns away, trying not to focus on the feeling of dread creeping into his mind. He turns the other direction, looking down another pale hallway, only to see a short figure standing there.

They appeared to be wearing an apron of some kind, standing next to a sheet-covered stretcher that made his skin crawl a bit more. They appeared to be staring straight through him, and Shinji swore he could see the color of their eyes. Blood red. He turns away again, putting a hand on the counter. “U-uh, I-I ne-ever got you-r name.”  
  
The woman behind the desk sits up, a white sheet in her hand. “Oh, right! Sorry. It’s Misato Katsuragi, but please, call me Misato. Now, if you’d fill out this form, I’ll make sure to look into hiring you.” She smiles and hands him the pen that was between her teeth. She pauses momentarily, looking at the chewed up writing utensil, before chucking and turning back to her desk, “I’ll, uh, get you a new pen. Sorry!”  
  
Shinji smiles very slightly at this, glancing over in an attempt to spot the figure again.

They’re gone.  
  


 

Shinji reaches the bottom of the stairs, his sandals making loud flaps as he makes his way across the linoleum seating area of the apartment building, passing by an empty front desk that was scattered with papers, which he didn’t look at. He pulls an old, slightly bent keyring from his jacket pocket, walking into a darker hallway, it’s creepiness being punctuated with the gentle drips of water outside the small, barred window behind him. He moves it around in his hands, standing in front of his personal mailbox. After he slips the key into it’s respective space, his curiosity is roused by a flicker at the far end of the hallway.

After contemplating the passing flicker, he quickly opens his mail locker, surprised to see a letter sitting inside. He grabs it, looking at the mechanically printed font on the front, which seemed to be the address of the mortuary. After closing his locker, he mentally congratulates himself, actually smiling for once, before stopping once he swears he feels a gentle, cool wind brush through the room, the ice-cold feeling of being watched stabbing through his stomach. He starts to run at that point, booking it towards the stairs before stopping, looking back into the dimly lit hall. Nothing there. Just… just the air conditioning. He shakes his head, the paper still gripped in his hand as he makes his way up the narrow stairs. Even then, he swears he can still feel the sharp chill of being watched.


	2. A Little Late

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So after looking at my schedule, I'm going to post every Wednesday. Thank you for your support so far!

According to the letter, the job would start on Friday night, 9PM to 1AM on every other day. An ungodly hour for most other people, but easy for him. The pay was rather high, he noted, as he read on to the near bottom of the paper, but that was good news for him. He continues to mull over the letter as he sits on his bed cross legged, finishing a microwavable noodle cup and setting it on the carpeted floor below him. He looks up, the room bathed in warm lamplight, tired eyes passing from the cracked ceiling, past the small, kitchen-ish area, and finally to the window next to him. A cool breeze ruffles the thin curtains as a light wind passes through the open window. He slowly stands up, walking over to it and putting his hand against the cool glass, before pulling back and shutting it with a click of the lock.

He steps back from the fixture, watching it closely as he slides away from it, stepping over to his lamp and flicking it off before making his way to the small, old mattress and lying face-down on top of it, not having the energy to pull the blanket over himself. He yawns, pulling his legs in close before staring off into the dark of the small room. And now, the wait begins…

 

It was around 8PM by the time he finally stood in front of the dark stone building, the Friday night sky above being blotted out by a thick mass of clouds and light pollution from the surrounding city. It was… dreary to say the least. Shuffling inside the building, he makes immediate eye contact with the woman behind the desk, she smiling slightly.

“You’re early? We’ve never had that happen before…,” he questions, standing and holding what appeared to be a plastic bag in her hand, “Well, nevermind that. Go ahead and wear these. You’ll only be doing mopping in the hallways and autopsy rooms first, as I said in the letter.”

Shinji smiles very slightly, looking at the bag she offered him before taking it and looking inside. Work uniform, as he expected. He looks up, to her again. “I, uh… thank you, by the way.”

“No problem! We were the ones asking for help in the first place. Not many people want to work here, especially after dark. I should be thanking you.” She smiles brightly at him, before turning and pointing down a hallway to his left. “There's a changing room down this hall that the dieners usually use. The janitorial closet is next to it. Have fun!”

Shinji just sort of stares at her for a second, before fully registering what she just said and turning down the long hallway, beginning his walk down the brightly lit passage. He looks left and right every so often at the plaques which were screwed to each door, before stopping in front of one that says ‘CHANGING’. Having found the right room, he opens the door, only to find a half dressed woman with red hair, pulling on what appeared to be medical scrubs. She turns once Shinji opens the door, her eyes widening before she immediately covers her chest with both hands.

Before he can even contemplate the mistake he made, the woman pounces forwards and swats him straight across the face. “Knock next time, dumbass!” she growls, shoving him back through the door and shutting it with one hand. He stands there, slightly dumbfounded for a moment and not completely registering what just happened, before rubbing the side of his face with one hand and sulking off into the nearby janitor's closet. He opens the creaky, unlocked door, flicking on the singular bulb light above him.

The small closet was filled to the ceiling with shelves, they being filled with bottles and cans of different cleaning ingredients. Some of them looking ancient while others brand new. On the far back wall, a large yellow bucket and plastic mop sit, they both being taped up randomly. He quickly changes into the large, somewhat baggy dark green scrubs Misato had given him, eventually choosing to just tuck the bottom of his shirt into his pants. He folds his original clothes and puts them on a clean shelf, before noticing something peculiar sitting in the bag that she had given him. A small, bronze key attached to a triangular keyring sits in there, looking a bit menacing. Maybe she had given it to him on accident…? Probably. He’d ask her about it at the end of his shift.

 

The first hour of his shift was rather boring. He ended up taking the bucket and mop with him, and then spent the next half hour searching for a tap. No one else seemed to be in at the time, not the red haired girl, or even Misato who had mysteriously disappeared after addressing him. Around then, he had eventually wandered into what appeared to be an autopsy room. He tried not to look directly at the far wall with it’s collection of small, metal doors as he used one of the faucets on a shiny metal table to fill the bucket. Then came actually working. By the end of the hour, Shinji was finished with the large room, though it took quite a lot of energy. Feeling tired, he lifted the large yellow bucket and exited the room to find another like it.

It was around 9:30 by the time he finished the first room, and was now working on the outer hallway. He had begun to doubt he was even qualified for this job, a slightly grimace crossing his face as he plops the mop back into the bucket, when a distant sound catches his attention. A resounding hum reverberates through the pale hallway, it slowly melding it’s way into a song. Shinji looks around, slightly confused by the winding melody that chills his soul. He grabs the cleaning supplies, walking over to the room labeled ‘AUTOPSY 3’ where the sound originates. At this distance, he can just barely hear words mumbled between the humming, they pausing every so often as if a conversation was taking place.

Shinji very slowly puts his free hand on the doorknob, turning it with an eventual ‘click’, and pushing in. He was suddenly blinded by a bright light. He raises an arm to his face, closing his eyes and stepping back, before lowering them slightly. A figure clad in dark red scrubs, a facial mask, a pair of dark goggle-like glasses, and a headlamp stares at him curiously from the doorway, holding it open with their lower arm. Their gloved hands appeared to be covered in blood, the figure seeming straight out of a horror movie with their pale white skin, giving them a ghostly appearance.

“I-I’m sorry for intruding! I’-m… new.” he was shaking slightly, still a bit startled by the figures appearance.

“It is quite alright, you do not need to apologise to me. And, ah… you must have been the one Misato told us about. Come in. I would like to learn more about you.” the figure cocks their head gently, their voice obviously alluding to the fact that they were smiling behind the surgical mask that was held to their face.

Shinji stops his shuddering, still holding both items at his side. “A-are you sure tha-t… Misato won’t be mad?”

The figure opens the door a bit more. “I am sure she would refrain from getting angry at you. I prefer to talk while working, anyways,” he talks in a somewhat strange way, he thinks, though Shinji doesn’t say anything about it.

“... Alright. My name i-is Shinji, by the way,” he states, slowly stepping forwards and entering the room, putting the two items he was originally holding by the wall. Once entering the room, he notes the strong scent of blood and lack of that humming noise he heard, along with that strange talking. He shakes his head, turning and jumping slightly when suddenly faced with a vivisected human corpse lying there, everything other than their torso being covered with a thin, sickly green sheet. He turns to the figure, who is now standing next to the table with a large pair of tweezers in his hand, trying not to look at the nameless man lying on the table. Shinji gulps as the figure turns to him, a seemingly ominous feeling entering the room, “y-yo-u didn’t… t-ell me y-your name.”

The figure looks away, chuckling as he continues to work at pulling back layers of viscera from the cadaver’s chest cavity. “I forgot to tell you my name? Oh, sorry. My name is Kaworu Nagisa. Please, call me Kaworu,” he pauses momentarily, picking up a long pair of forceps to pull a long, needle-like object from inside the person’s right hip. He drops the thing in a small dish next to him, where there was many objects similar to it. “I have the same shift as you, Shinji, as do two others. I assume we will be seeing each other a lot, then?”

The boy standing further from the dead person nods mechanically as Kaworu pulls out another shard, this time from the upper chest. Shinji vaguely registers Kaworu saying his name, before passing to a different thought. “I… guess so. S-so, uh, Kaworu. What exactly… do you do here?” he talks quietly, the figure looking at him again as a clink resounds from the metal dish as Kaworu drops it in, before standing and picking it up with him.

“Me? Well, this morgue in general specialises in deaths that the police see as… ‘minor crimes.’ Things that are brushed under the rug, so to say. Most of the people here do not have any family, or are homeless,” he seemed to state this matter-of-factly, walking over to a wash basin to clean the shards, “most people would not care if these people existed or not. It is… a bit sad, really. Now, me in particular? I do most of the basic autopsies and remove foreign bodies from these victims. The other two girls, Mari and Asuka, mostly prep bodies for negative temperature chambers. We typically do not get a lot of people in that stay here for a short period of time.”

Shinji stands there, watching Kaworu turn around with the dish of shards and set them on an autopsy table, holding an orange bag in the other hand. “Oh, th-that’s… nice,” he slowly steps back to his bucket, grabbing it by the handle with his shaking hand, “I’ll just be… going… now.”

Kaworu turns, cocking his head. “So soon? Alright. I would not want to keep you from your work any longer. I will see you later, mm?”

Shinji nods wordlessly, turning and shuffling out of the room.


	3. Initial Introduction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for you support thus far! I'm sure I'll be updating regularly now.

The remainder of the night was spent mopping the large hallway, and a small portion of the side rooms. He checks the watch on his right wrist, a tired look in his eyes. Ten minutes left. He stalls in the doorway of the third (Fourth? Second? He can’t quite remember.) room he’s cleaned, other than the main hallway, which he stares into.

A sigh passes his lips, his eyes shutting as he wiggles the plastic grip of the empty plastic bucket he holds in his right hand. He had emptied it with the hope of quickly returning it and the mop to the closet three doors down, when the sound of something falling onto the ground alerts him.

A woman lies on the ground five feet away from him, on her back with both arms outwards. Her pink glasses and dark hair were slightly askewed as she sits up, squinting and rubbing the back of her head with her right arm. “Ooooowww…”

“O-oh, are you alright?!” he goes to her side, kneeling down, “... are you hurt?”

The female figure turns to him, squinting a bit as she fixes her glasses. “Yeah, I’m fine… wait, who’re you??” She tilts her head, starting to sit up on her knees.

“Uh, I-I’m Shinji. I’m new.

“Ouhh, so you’re the one Misato told me about, huh? You’re shorter than I thought you’d be… how old are you, huh?~”

“U-uh…"

“Don’t answer that,” another voice pipes up behind the mysterious woman, she turning around to face the red haired figure behind her.

“Oh, Princess, there you are!! I was looking for you. The Prince said he wanted you t-” she doesn’t finish her sentence, being interrupted by the firey-haired figure, who steps past her to point accusingly at Shinji.

_“You.”_

“... Me?” Shinji decides to speak up, overlooking his bad idea as she suddenly grabs him by the collar, shoving him back.

“Yeah! You walked in on me while I was changing!” she snaps at him, he squeaking and cowering back with a shocked expression on his face.

“Hey, hey, Princess! Calm down!” the taller figure behind her speaks up, putting a hand on her shoulder. The one gripping his collar turns to her, grumbling a bit, “I’m sure this little pup meant no harm to you,” she looks at Shinji. He looks back at her, a scared and slightly confused expression on his face. _That nickname is new_ … he remarks to himself while mentally writing his last will and testament.

‘Princess’ turns her burning, blue glare back to him, her eyes seeming to glint as red as her scrubs. “... Fine. But, next time, knock,” she leaves it at that, dropping him. He skitters back a bit, fixing the collar of his undershirt quickly.

The slightly taller figure raises a hand, getting his attention. “Sooo… as I’ve never met you before, we should start with names. My name is Mari, and this is Asuka,” she points to the still scowling figure to her left, Shinji eyeing her covered left arm, before his eyes float to her uncovered right. He doesn’t ask about it, instead looking back up to her as she continues to speak, “and I assume you’ve met the Prince, correct? Tall skinny pale guy, red eyes? Looks really creepy? S-”

“You should refrain from talking about people behind their backs, Makinami. You never know who might hear…,” a quieter, more even voice pipes up behind them, Mari and Asuka looking over with a startled exclamation, Shinji once again scooting back. Kaworu stares at them, looking much different from when Shinji had first seen him. Burning red eyes focus back on them, the sharp looking teeth of his grin gleaming dangerously in the artificial light of the hallway. He leans on what appeared to be a rolling table with a scarily lumpy looking sheet on it, “especially to someone who has not entirely formed their their opinion on them yet.”

“A-ah, Kawou! There you are!” Mari stands tall again, the other woman glaring bullets at the pale figure with her piercing blue eyes, “I was just… just looking for you, too!” she gulps, looking between the two.

Asuka looks at her, huffing. “Fine. Stay out of trouble and head home, Four-Eyes,” she turns over back to Mari, somehow inferring what she said from their half-finished conversation earlier.

“But Princeeess~ I wanted to accompany you home tonight…,” she huffs, crossing her arms with a cat-like smile on her face, “but fine. See you later.”

Shinji just sits there, looking a good mixture of confused and interested in the conversation as Asuka and Kaworu exit, walking down the hall wordlessly. Mari turns her smug look to him, fixing her pink glasses. “Yeees? Don’t you have super important janitor things to be doing?”

He gulps, looking at her. “U-uh, no. My… my shift just ended,” he murmurs, she just chuckling in response before turning and walking off. Shinji stands there for a second, shivering just a bit before he walks back to the janitorial closet to change.

 

 

Snow. How was there snow already? Yeah, it was autumn and stuff, but… snow? He opens the front door of the mortuary, stepping out into the cold air as his arms which were only covered in the thinnest jacket he owned at the time were subjected to the biting cold. He stares at the thin layer of white powder that covers the ground, cursing himself as he puts his hands into the pockets of said jacket. He looks out and around the thin street on which the stone building resides, before looking straight up at the clouded sky with its chilling, frosty flakes raining down all around him, making the empty street seem almost otherworldly. He looks back down, shutting his eyes and beginning to walk back towards his home, something he both hates and constantly wishes to do.

“I’d open my eyes if I were you, Shinji,” a voice suddenly starts behind him, the sound of shoes tapping on the cold ground.

He stops, opening his eyes and sharply looking back, his eyes being met with a still coy looking Mari. “O-oh, hello…,” he turns around, looking at her long, dark red trench coat barely touching the ground, “... didn’t Asuka tell you that you should to go home?”

“Yeah, yeah. But, I stayed behind because I wanted to talk to you, puppy boy,” she looks him head on, an unnamable smirk crossing her face, giving him a strange anxious feeling that claws at his stomach, “walk and talk, if you will.”

She watches him intensely, he slowly starting to walk with her following next to him, her posture seeming much more straight and tall. “U-uh… what did you want to talk a-about?”

Mari looks down at him, if only slightly. “So, tell me Shinji… why exactly did you choose our place of business as your own, hm? Did someone dare you?

 _Oh, so that's what this is about_ … Shinji slowly looks away, continuing to walk. “Uh, no… no on the dare thing. I’ve actually been out of work for a while now,” he glances over, seeing that Mari was directing her constant smirk forwards, “I’ve been surviving on savings for a while now.”

“Ouhhh, so you’re the son of some rich dude, huh? Get your money off a trust fund from him, or-”

“No,” Shinji’s voice was suddenly serious, he turning to her, “I’m not on good terms with him.”

“Oh, do tell,” she looks over at him, her smile fading a bit once she saw the hurt look in his eyes.

“I don’t care to talk about it,” he says quietly, looking away with a scowl.

“Aw, c’mon. Don’t be all hurt about it. I was just curious. Would it make you feel any better if I told you about me…?” she pipes up, her look brightening a bit.

 _No,_ but Shinji glances over, his hands squirming around in his pockets a bit. “S-sure, I guess…”

Mari lets out a boisterous laugh, clapping him on the back. “That's what I like to hear!” she chuckles, Shinji looking over at her with a slightly scared look on his face, “Now, you know how you’re not supposed to climb a mountain when there's a thunderstorm, right? Well-”

It was going to be a long walk home.

 

 

 

“How does that even work, though? Why didn’t you die?” Shinji sits next to her on a park bench, holding her left arm in his hands, studying the long, winding, almost vine-like scar lacing from her fingertips to past where she pulled up her sleeve.

“‘Cause I’m resilient. At least that's what Asuka said after the fact when I was in the hospital,” Mari chirps back around the bottle of whatever she had bought at the store earlier, smiling once she lowers it with a dink as it lightly touches the concrete of the bench, making a small pock mark in the snow that had settled there. They had wandered into a convenience store half-way through Mari’s story about her poor hiking choices, she buying herself a drink and insisting they sit in a nearby park to talk, “though it was lined with curses. She was really worried about me.”

“I’d guess so. You did get struck by lightning,” he releases her arm, it returning to her side after she pulls down her sleeve again. He rubs his own hands together, opening and closing his fingers while looking down at them.

They lapse into silence, looking out into the snow-covered park around them. What time was it, anyways…? Shinji looks slightly over to Mari, who stares up into the clouded sky, seemingly lost in thought. He felt slightly similar, also looking up into the sky. Its vast expanse of clouds is slightly overlayed by thin drifts of snowflakes, blowing in small patches. A large split in the clouds shows the moon, nearly full at this time. Stars shine resiliently around it’s pale form. Suddenly, Mari speaks.

“What’s you opinion on ghosts?”

The question immediately strikes him as a bit weird, he turning to look at her, to inspect the smirk… that had now disappeared. “What do you mean? Ghosts as in…,” he turns away, hearing the subtle sound of snow crunching underfoot, “the kind with the sheet thing? Stacking chairs on tables? Or-”

“No, no, nothing like that. I’m sorry for getting all serious and stuff, it's just that… nevermind. I’ll talk about it later. I think I’m gonna head home for the night, actually, not to abandon you in this cold,” she says, standing up and brushing the snowflakes from her hair, “and I’d suggest you go home too. I’m not here to defend you, and you might fall victim to hungry park raccoons or something like that.~”

Shinji smirks at that, standing up and putting his hands back in his pockets. “I’ll be sure to watch out on my way home. Thanks for talking to me, by the way…,” he looks down, shuffling his cold feet in the snow.

“No prob’, puppy. I’ll talk to you later, huh?” she starts walking away after Shinji nods back, smiling and waving.

Shinji watches her leave, still moving his feet. The glowing expanse of dawn shines only slightly over the horizon, he looking straight up into the sky. His mind begins to wander as snowflakes pepper his skin, melting into drips that track down his face like tears, wicking away into the collar of his shirt. Ghosts… the thought ate at him, he shutting his eyes as the first rays of sunlight cascade over the horizon. A new day… something new.

Yet the morning air still smelled stale, thick like a tomb to him.


	4. Memories Muffled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh BOY this is out late. I'm super sorry. Some certain things got in the way, and I have decided to move my update day to every other Wednesday. In other news, if you want to follow me on social media I'm hellionesque on tumblr! And, as always, critiques are welcome. Thank you!

He never really contemplated stars so much until this point of his life. Looking up at them constantly as he walked to the mortuary every other night made him become more and more familiar with them. But now, with this added pressure on his mind, he could only look to the stars for answers.

 _No, no, that would be weird. Why would I bring up a conversation we had two nights ago…?_ He grumbles this over in his mind, pacing in front of the stone building. The thought of ghosts still bit at his mind like a hungry animal, constantly over his shoulders. Shinji never really thought hard about it before, and didn’t know why it had affected him so much. Why did he lose even more sleep, which he already lost a lot of, over one simple phrase? He couldn’t wipe the concerned look Mari had on her face after she disregarded her statement. He needed to talk to her, but…

He shakes his head, walking up the steps to the tall dark doors and pushing them open. The fluorescent light of the front area stung his eyes slightly with their intensity. He looks around the lobby area, suprised to see it abandoned, not even Misato being behind the front desk. Oh, well… he turns, walking down the hall to the janitor’s closet. He hadn’t transferred his clothes over to the changing room just yet, instead keeping them inside the locked room for safekeeping. After a few seconds of walking, he pauses mid-stride when a quiet, somewhat feminine hum resonates through the hall, being extremely similar to the two events he heard before, the very presence of the noise seeming to make him more anxious than he typically was. He turns all the way around, looking down the long hallway before stopping in his tracks, eyes widening at the distressing sight before him.

A figure stands there, their body poised as if they were a statue. Their thin, sinewy figure is barely covered by a white gown of some kind, which is spattered with a thick looking red-brown substance down the front and sides. Their pale white skin is marred with patches of discolouration and bruises, highly contrasted by red eyes, even visible at this distance, which seem to burn through him. A pale blue medical mask covers their lower face, it being around the same colour as their hair, which frames a face with the complexion of a rotted cadaver from what he can see. He stumbles back at the figures ghastly appearance, the humming getting louder and louder by the second as the figure begins to converge towards him, his legs frozen in fear.

He blinks. The figure is standing a good five feet away from him, a corpse-like arm slowly raising to reach towards his face. Shinji watches as her arm ripples like water, something _moving_ under her skin. His heart was thundering so loudly in his ears that is was overtaking the sound of her hums, which stitch together into a song that sounded like the screams of the dead, a snarled melody that rakes his soul. Her fingers were now incredibly close to his face, he being able to see peeled back fingernails and rotted flesh barely clinging to her emaciated body. With the other hand, she reaches up and pulls down the medical mask held to her face. Behind it, a lipless mouth filled with sharp, rotted out teeth are bared like a snarling dog, her eyes suddenly widening as she meets his own gaze. Her pupils shrink with a thick sloshing noise.

He lets out a choked off scream before falling onto his back, fainting.

 

 

A sharp breath hisses from his nose, a jolt hitting his body like lightning. He opens his eyes.

Light floods into his vision, the world blurring and turning, before gently evening out into… his apartment. The cracked popcorn of his ceiling seems almost homey. But… how did he get here? Wasn’t he at the mortuary? Maybe it was just a dream. A really bad dream. Why would he work at a mortuary? Dead people are there. It was all a rough, sorry dream, and he was still a jobless, sickening twenty-something living alone.

He feels around the bed he was resting on, finding it empty and unkempt as always. _Nothing is wrong._ He lets out a held breath, his mind calming. After a few seconds of lying still, he finally gets the initiative to move. Slowly, he sits up with the normal crook in his neck, yawning rather widely.

He is greeted immediately with the sight of Kaworu, now wearing a grey shirt and black jeans for a change, lying in his counter. _Oh_. Shinji has a gentle, nauseating few seconds of gawking and realizations about how downhill his life has gone. He immediately jumps after said negative thoughts, even adding in a yelp for good measure as the pale man sits up, looking at him.

“You appear to be awake. Good morning! Do you feel any cranial swelling? Are you lightheaded? You hit your skull quite hard. If I may ask, how did you happen to fall? Did you slip?”

“I- wh… what? I… what are you doing on my counter? Why are you in my apartment?” Shinji watches the other slide off of the said cooking prep surface.

“Oh, I am very sorry for intruding. Let me explain. Asuka found you lying in the hallway, and then notified us by screaming. Misato found out you fainted, and told me to take you home. Asuka then made a rude joke about me dissecting you. I carried you to the address you wrote in your job application, and then used the keyring you brought with you to open the door. I then lied you on your bed, and realised I could not just leave you alone due to your slightly cranial injury,” he smiles widely, “and, I slept on your counter because it was the flattest elevated surface in your house.” He chuckles quietly, before launching off into a rant about said counter, and why they were superior to the floor or something crazy like that.  
  
Shinji sits there, listening to him talk on and on about his counter and how comfy it was. He slowly lies down again, staring at the ceiling. The others blabbing gently subsides, the room growing quiet. Kaworu’s face slides in from the side of his vision, the grey looking light from the window shining off of a small, metal piercing punctured through the outer shell of his right ear. His red eyes glint a bit, he looking down at the other with his sleeved arms levitating over the other’s bedside. “Are you alright, though? If I may ask, what did make you fall at such an inopportune time?”

The much more tired person turns to the other, sighing. “I’m… fine. I’m not sure what… happened, exactly,” he breathes out the words, watching the other cock their head. The image of the corpse-like figure, covered in sores and bruises, with their mouth full of decayed teeth was still fresh in his mind. He tries to wash it away with other thoughts.

“Oh. Well, if you do not mind, I will be staying here for a while to watch your condition. Did you know you talk in your sleep?”

Shinji groans in slight anguish at this, flipping over on his side away from the other. “No. I live alone, so there would be none other than my consistently angry neighbors to tell me about my terrible sleep schedule,” he sighs into his words, stretching his arms. The statement earns a little chuckle from the paler figure, who was now playing with the wrist ends of his long shirt. He had leaned over, his elbows pressed into the surface on the side of the mattress, stomach pressed against the side.

“I do have to say, though, you talk very fast. I think heard clips of information about airplanes. Penguins, also.” Kaworu smiles around his words, now sitting down on the floor staring at the other’s back.

Shinji flips over on his back again, feeling a slightly feather-ruffling laugh chirp from himself. It felt dreamy. When was the last time he laughed? Or even talked to someone for this long? Maybe his conversation with Mari… wait, Mari. Mari! He sits straight up, getting a strong bout of headrush while looking down at Kaworu, who looks at him curiously. He works the thought over in his mind; it had now been… three nights since he last spoke to her. Now he _knows_ it’ll be awkward if he brings it up in conversation with her. Suddenly, his thoughts switch to last night. The figure he saw…

“... Kaworu, what do you think about ghosts?” he asks in a somewhat shaky tone, looking down at the more confused man, who had a similarly cute look of contemplation on his face. What was happening to him? His thoughts were sent into a tailspin as a red-eyed look of mixed feelings was pointed towards him, though it was mostly eclipsed by confusion.

“Ghosts…? Well, I have never really thought about it… Personally, though, I think there is life after death, but not in the fact that the dead leave to somewhere else entirely…” a slightly sad smile plays at his face, he looking towards the open window to their right, “… though that is just personal opinion. Morso, I believe that if someone had a near-death experience, they can understand what ‘ghosts’ really are. Not in a mental sense, but more of a physical one.” he rubs at the wrists of his shirt, stilling his hands once Shinji looks down at him, “What I am trying to ask you, Shinji, is if… going off my person assumptions, do you think that you yourself can see ghosts?”

Shinji stares back at him, feeling as though he missed a part of that conversation somewhere. What was he trying to say…? Was he trying to get some sort of information from him? His thoughts stilled as he thought back to his past, far back in the reaches of his mind he wished to keep down. He shakes his head no in response to Kaworu’s question. Not now. He could tell him later.

Kaworu just smiles that same blearily bright smile, not questioning him about it. A chilling breeze blows from the open window, they both turning to listen as a particularly loud car goes by. The pale man stands up, walking over to it. “If you do not mind, I will be staying a bit longer. Head injuries can have delayed effects.” Something seemed to be off about how he was speaking, as if he was holding something back. Shinji knew he trusted Kaworu, but… did the other trust him? His nails dug into his own wrists slightly, he recoiling once he noticed Kaworu staring.

“I, um… it’s alright. You can stay for as long as you want. I’ll just be lying here in the meantime.”

“Thank you.” he puts a hand on the windowsill, Shinji staring for a few uneasy seconds. He didn’t know why it unsettled him.

“Uh… sure.” he says, feeling some sort of disconnect. He didn’t even feel like he was sitting in the room anymore. His shoulders shiver at the sound of the window shutting with a loud clack. He could tell an uneasy feeling had entered the room after he had said something, but he didn’t understand what. The room suddenly lurches, his vision flashing. He doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he lies back down and stares upwards, trying to forget someone else was in the room.

“Are you entirely sure you are alright?” Kaworu is suddenly standing over him. Shinji almost laughs when he sees the ceiling behind him twitch and change colour. That wasn’t normal. He doesn’t respond. “Shinji…?”

“I’m… alright.” he responds, crossing his arms over his face. His heart is beating so fast. He can hear that humming again. Why was it here? The room suddenly felt so hot, his heart beating harder. He pulls up his sleeves, one of his arms now held out in front of him, fingers twitching and grasping at nothing. Nothing. _There's nothing there so why is he so afraid?!_  
  
“Shinji, you…,” what did Shinji do now? What did he do? What was wrong with him. He feels a gentle touch to his wrist, now bared. A shiver passes through him. It all just stops, like hitting a wall. The room stops rocking back and forth, and the hum once again retreats. He pulls the arm that was still held over his eyes away, watching cold, thin fingers trace his wrist, edging over the side of a scar long since healed. A thick, heavily distorted line runs down the length of his arm, a singular milk-toned slice. On the base of his wrist, it is crossed by another line, shorn through his skin. He doesn’t want to look at them any longer, so he puts his other arm against his face, pressing the matching scar on that arm against his sweat-beaded forehead.

He sits in silence like that for a while. Kaworu gently puts his arm back down against his stomach, Shinji now being completely still despite his previous headrush. “I see that you appear to be in some form of distress. I can leave, if you wish.”

Shinji pulls his arm upwards, his deep blue eyes tinted with his own, personal mix of sadness, anger, and fear of himself. He looks at the figure above him who now seems more like a shadow than a man. This was his fault. But it wasn’t, at the same time. He wasn’t the one who put those wretched marks there. He attempts to force the memories from his mind, but they all come flooding back. Tears drip down his face. “No. P-please stay…” he didn’t know why those words in particular stung at his throat like hot smoke, his voice wavering in a pause. Words seemed to fail him as Kaworu turned to look at him, a comforting smile on his face.

“Alright. Would you like to… talk about it?” he says, sitting at the foot of the bed. Shinji shakes his head, sitting up while rubbing his eyes.

“No, I-I’m sorry for getting emotional. I just-” he starts, but is cut off when he feels something wrap around his shoulders. Kaworu had leaned towards him, hugging Shinji closely. Shinji freezes up at the sudden contact, feeling more tears drip down his face, uncontrolled emotion gripping him like a rip current. When Kaworu doesn’t make a move to unfurl his arms from around the crying man, Shinji slowly reaches out and puts a hand on the other’s back, his palms clammy from anxiousness. When was the last time someone had held him close like this? Human contact this gentle seemed almost alien to him.

After a few more moments of closeness, Kaworu pulls back, his arms still around his neck. “It is okay. If you wish to speak about it, I am open to talk to you.” he smiles at Shinji as he wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. Shinji gives a smaller smile back, pulling his hand back as Kaworu stands up once again. Suddenly, they are both alerted to a dull buzz, Kaworu putting his hand on his hip and pulling a scratched looking flip phone from his pocket.

“Ah, um, I have to take this. I will be out in the hallway. If you need anything, just open the door and I will be there.” he talks breathily, as if somewhat concerned about what he saw on the screen. Shinji smiles and nods as Kaworu turns, exiting the apartment and closing the door behind him.

Shinji sits there, the silence of the room seeming to shiver around him. The smile was still stuck to his face, he holding the hand that was on Kaworu’s back out in front of him. His entire body felt warm, a glowing light seeming to shine within him. He felt… happy. It felt so strange to admit that to himself, but he did it anyways, because suddenly it felt right.

\---

“God, Nagisa, you’re such an idiot!” a harsh voice yells through the speaker held to his ear, which he pulls back with only a small scowl on his face, “Ugh, I don’t get you sometimes… what if you scared him away? And you slept on his counter??”

“You say that like I am less intelligent than you, Shikinami. I beg to differ,” he chuckles, leaning back against the walls of the hall with a thin, cat-like smile returning to his face, “and, if you care at all, I have information.”

Another voice chimes through the line, this one being much kinder. “Ahhh, Prince working his charms on the newbie, huh? Sorry I wasn’t here at the start of the call, I had my hands in one of our client’s stomachs.”

A grumble sounds from the other side, before Asuka pipes up again. “And, what kind of information would that be?”

“I believe that Shinji may be the kind of person we are looking for.”


	5. Necrotic Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinji has entered the U N C H I L L Z O N E
> 
> Okay, I'm seriously sorry this wasn't out yesterday. I was doing things all day, and didn't get the chance to upload. Anyways, thank you for your continued support, and as always, critiques are welcomed!
> 
> (Also, if you aren't that into gore-y stuff, you can skip the first part that is italicized)

_The Sun is low in the sky above Shinji, the glowing sunset seeming to seep into the cartilage of his eyes sockets and leach into his brain like acid. The air hangs heavy and acrid around him as he sits chest-deep in a red-brown substance that pours around him like water, a thin layer of shiny oil covering the surface, swirling rainbows of colour on a cracked surface. A red mist covers the coast around him, he only being able to see the glowing star above through the crimson cloud that condenses on his pale skin in red, thick drops that smell of heavy copper. He puts his hands against the sludge-covered bottom, pushing his body upwards as his feet sink into the foul smelling mire._

_He stands upright, his nude form dripping with the stinking liquid. He stares out into the glowing bay, his body shaking as a ripple passes through the water behind him. He already knows what is there. He turns anyways, looking towards a figure standing on the surface of the dirty blood with that blank, constant look on her face. The thin, pale woman stares at him with glowing, red eyes, blue hair dredged with chunks of dried mud. Her misshapen body seems to heave with movement without her even moving a muscle._

_Is this what you wanted, she seemed to say with her very presence, you wanted to see me? He lurches forwards slightly, a hand on his stomach as the movements that seem to wriggle under the surface of her see-through skin begin to lurch around inside his stomach as he sees that her left arm terminates roughly at a bleeding stump just below her boney shoulder, small white drops seeming to join her blood as it pours from the open hole in her body. Maggots. He hates maggots. They crawl from the open wound to a gaping, ripped open hole in her face, her left cheek being non-existent as the dead flesh around it was eaten away by the slimy worms._

_He stares into the death mask of her face, glowing eyes painted with a look of pure contempt. He steps back as she move forwards, her hand on his shoulder, and oh god, oh my god, her face unfurls outwards, tearing at the corners like paper as the shining, bloodied visage of his nightmares appears in front of him, he trying to scream at what he was seeing, had now seen, and what he will see, the sound of his terror tearing from his vocal cords like the threads of a sheet being torn apart by a hound, the sound severed from his very soul like the head of someone being decapitated, the skull pulled from the spine like a child pulls at their mother's hair. Mother? Mother._

_He stares into the empty eye sockets of the blood spattered face of his mother._

 

 

Shinji stares straight upwards, eyes unfocusing and wavering from side to side every few seconds, the room bathed in moonlight that sinks through the window to his right, the room the colour of the ocean shallows. His head seems to swim, the sound of pouring rain outside echoing through the space, between the joints of his bones. He slowly comes to, stabilizing as he focuses his eyes on a particularly large crack that runs along the corner of his ceiling.

It felt late, at least. He was tired, hunger clawing at his stomach as he sits up and stretches his arms backwards. He listens closely to the quiet sounds that shiver through the dark area around him, moving his legs over the edge of the mattress. Sweat collects between his edged shoulder blades, dripping down the unevenly heaving plane of his spine, lying his head in his hands as he desperately tries to wipe away the last vestiges of the nightmare that had decided to plant itself into his mind that night.

He leans over, sweeping his hands through his drenched hair, letting out a long sigh as he drinks in the sounds of the room. He glances up as a sound suddenly ceases to be, the sound of the shower shutting off with a squeak of metal-on-metal. He glances over to see a light flooding out from under the bathroom door, the gentle sound of feet on tile. He squints a bit as light seeps into the room from the now open door.

Kaworu stands in the doorway, a towel around his waist. He stays still for a few seconds, before turning to look towards Shinji, realizing he’s now sitting up

“Ah… good morning, Shinji. It was alright that I used your shower, correct?”

Shinji stares blankly back at him, his eyes wide as he looks down the other’s sloped, pale shoulders, across ribs standing out under pale, thin skin as rigid forms, arcs. Over his entire upper torso, from what he sees, is covered with incredibly intricate and detailed tattoos; coiled sigils, the sharp lines of what appear to be feather-bound wings cascade down a thin spine, stunningly realistic eyes held to his shoulders and middle back, seeming to glow with life, a sudden change from what appears to be a collection of bird skulls of varying sizes across his collar bones. Shinji sits there, completely awestruck, before gulping and nodding shakily.

“Ah, thank you. By the way, you did sort of... pass out earlier. I checked your pulse and you seemed to be alright, but I suggest you drink some water.” He smiles, turning and walking over to the table and picking up a grey shirt with one hand, his other still holding the towel around his waist. Shinji immediately turns away, lying back down and recoiling himself into a half-fetal position, facing the wall, trying to focus on the sound of gently pattering rain and not on his shaking hands, and especially not on the changing figure on the other side of the room.

He lies there, waiting. Theres the gentle sound of feet on carpet, a gentle clink, and the sound of the refrigerator opening. He shuts his eyes, bowing his head between his arms. He shivers viciously, his mind throbbing with a headache, his stomach turning as his vision flashes red with the memory of-

He listens to the faint sound of a clink on his nightstand, the sound of pressure on his bedside as Kaworu sits down behind him, and Shinji can feel him looking at him.

“Once again, I am sorry for intruding into your personal space, but you appear to be under some level of stress.” Kaworu looks down at him, a concerned look on his face as Shinji flips over on his back.

Shinji stares at the ceiling, trying to ignore Kaworu’s still shirtless form sitting next to him in the bed. He tightens his fists, a choked sounding sigh escaping his lungs as he closes his eyes. “I’m- I’m sorry. Sorry- it’s personal. I don’t-”

“You are afraid of something. You have no idea how to deal with it, other than to grow into yourself and hide. So afraid of it, that you try not to tell other people about what it is, and therefore fall further into the grip of reclusion, your heart turning into a frozen stone of longing- longing to touch, to feel again, to try and explain your problems. But you just keep going, and going, falling further into yourself. Somewhere within the cage of your ribs, your heart still beats despite the cold feeling that spreads there, strong and true, but outside you are restless.” Kaworu speaks slow and in an even, calm tone, Shinji looking up at him from his spot on the mattress, scanning the stressed lines of his face. He didn’t understand, but at the same time, he did.

“I... ,” He’s lost for words for a second, turning on his side and looking past him, again trying to focus more on the sound of crashing rain and wind outside of the window, relaxing his sweating palms, “I really don’t know anymore. I had a dream- no, a nightmare, and somehow I can’t shake the fact that it felt more like a memory than a prophecy,” But it’ll pass, though. Won’t it? He mulls this over in his mind, looking past Kaworu to his nightstand and spying a glass of water, the outer rim of it glowing with the ambient shine of the bathroom light, “... but, maybe it’s both.”

“And what brings you to that conclusion?” Kaworu reaches over and grabs the glass, offering it to Shinji. The latter takes it, flipping over onto his back and sitting up a little to take a sip. It’s refreshing, to say the least.

“I dunno. It just feels like it. Like… a gut feeling.” He takes another sip, swallowing, before looking up at the ceiling.

“That sounds very strange, but I can understand if you are speaking from experience.”

“I’m not, it’s just something you feel sometimes. Like… like a feeling you get when you know in your mind that something isn’t right, but there isn’t any actual proof that it isn’t. You’ve felt something like that, right?”

“No, not that I know of,” He smiles, looking down at him, “I guess I will just have to wait and see.”

Shinji looks back down, and just lets out a small laugh. “I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but… why do you talk like that?”

Kaworu gives him a puzzled look, scooting further onto his mattress and crossing his legs. The black fabric of his pants makes a weird rubbing sound. “Like what?”

“Like, I don’t know… weirdly. I-I don’t mean that in a bad way! I just meant-”

The other just smiles, rubbing his hands together. “I know, people have told me before. Actually, this one time during a particularly late night when I was discussing something with the girls, Shikinami told me I ‘talk like I have a fist shoved up my ass,’ but I think that is just her personality speaking.”

Shinji stares at him incredulously for a few seconds, putting his free hand over his mouth, a sound escaping his lungs that sounds akin to a cough and a laugh at the same time. _Oh my God,_ he thinks at first, because he totally does. And then his brain catches up, and he realises that that’s a pretty mean thing to say, so he retracts the thought. “That’s- um, pretty mean.” He says around held back laughs, watching Kaworu’s smile widen into a bleary grin.

“I know, right? Mari accosted her, but she was still set in what she said. Though, Mari laughed too… huh,” He pauses for a second, before laughing himself, “Well, nevermind then.”

“I’m sure the both of them still like you, though.” Shinji says after he's calmed himself down from his personal laughing fit, he now sitting completely upwards with one leg tucked up towards his chest. Kaworu slides right next to him, both hands still planted behind him to keep him upwards.

“Yeah, I am quite sure of that.” He grins back at him, before pulling his hand away, and in turn accidentally brushing it against Shinji’s as he draws it forwards. Shinji twitches at the touch, he watching Kaworu stand up and stretch in front of him. “Well, I will let you sleep now, and not worry you any longer with my presence. If that is alright with you, Shinji.”

“Oh, u-uh…,” He looks up at him, touching the portion of his arm that Kaworu brushed. He must need to get home… “It’s alright, I’m fine now. Th-thank you.”

“Goodnight, then.” Kaworu chimes, standing by the now open front door with one hand on the frame, he looking back. Shinji waves as he steps out, closing the door gently behind him.

He sits in silence for a bit, staring into the dark room, his hair stuck uncomfortably to his scalp from the dried sweat that had been persperated. He slowly lies back down on the mattress, a sigh escaping his lungs as he finally relaxes, letting the now calm feeling of the room seep into his skin and bones.

 

 

Winter seemed to finally be in full swing, Shinji realises, as he steps out of his apartment building. His worn sneakers crunch in the thin layer of dirty snow as he walks down the quiet, dark street, a collection of dry leaves rattling across the cold sidewalk. He lets out a sigh, condensed air billowing from his nose as he sticks his hands inside of his thicker and more durable coat that he fished from under his bed, it being slightly too large for him. A scarf hangs around his neck loosely, it blowing in the winter winds that kick up every so often and occasionally swats him in the face, he squinting.

He sighs, cold legs moving almost autonomously until he reaches the morgue, the foreboding building seeming to be a shadow in the front of his mind. He stares at the front doors, his hands gripping and relaxing in his pockets every once in awhile. His eyes track along the front of the building, second thoughts spreading quickly around his mind. Maybe… maybe that _thing_ will come back. He shudders at the thought, an image of the emaciated figure standing before him flashing through his mind. He absolutely did not want that.

He balls his fists in his pockets one last time, closing his eyes and breathing in, because no, no, it’s fine. There's no such thing as ghosts, or specters, or whatever the hell that was. Just a stupid vision. Nothing to get worked up over. _But why are you just standing here, then? Go inside if you’re so unafriad of it. Go on._

His fists shake in his pockets as he takes one step forwards, the telltale crunch of snow crumbling under his shoe. Breathe in. Breathe out. Another step. He does the same process again, again, he still can’t see but he’s getting closer, slowly he continues his steps, again, again, aga-

“What are you doing?” A voice growls from behind him, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. His eyes open as he whirls around mid-step, misjudging his footfall and tripping quite extravagantly, falling flat onto his back with a loud thud. Snow flutters around his head as he stares upwards, dazed by the sudden impact to the back of his head. A figure walks into his vision, looking down at him with their hands in their pockets.

Asuka stands above him, scowling. “I’d ask if you need help, but that seems redundant at this point.” She says this in a flat tone, slowly taking one hand out of her pocket and holding it out in front of her. He sits up, rubbing the back of his head in an attempt to clear the pain there. He pulls his hand away from his hair and reaches out, grabbing her gloved hand, standing up and brushing the snow off of his coat.

“I-I um, I was just…”

“Your pulse is racing,” She states, holding his hand and scowling at him with her blazing blue eyes, “You’re afraid of something?”

“I…,” He pulls his hand away, putting them back in his pockets as he turns to the foreboding building. He inhales, walking towards it slowly, “I-it’s cold. I’m going inside.”

Asuka is still standing there when he turns back, he pulling one hand out of his pocket to wave at her. She just follows him, not returning the gesture. “I want to talk to you. Come to Autopsy 3. Don’t bother changing.” She doesn’t wait for his response, instead walking past him and entering through the front doors uneventfully. He stands there, shuddering in the cold air with a scared look on his face.

She wanted to talk to him…? He inhales, holding the breath. Was this about the ‘ghost’ thing? He steels himself, stepping forwards and pushing the doors open, squinting as he walks into the lit space. He is immediate met with Misato sitting on the counter with her legs crossed, she appearing to be texting. She looks up once the door closes behind him, she immediately fumbling with her phone to put it away. “A-ah, Shinji! Good afternoon. Are you feeling better? The last time I saw you, you seemed a little… faint.”

Shinji stares at her for a few seconds, the clouded impulse to laugh being mixed with the mental strain of ‘ _oh my god she just said that._ ’ She’s even making the finger guns at him. He slowly shuffles way, leaving her laughing boisterously on the counter.

He sulks down the left hallway, his head lowering as he stops in front of a familiar door, he eyeing the backwards ‘3’ on it. It bothers him. He pushes the door open, walking into the room, which is lit with very bright lights. He squints, eyes watering a bit, as he adjusts to it, taking in the room and it’s formaldehyde-like stench.

Three figures stand around an autopsy table in full surgical garb, they all staring eerily back at him. Alright, no. He stares back at the collection of others, he being thoroughly intimidated at this point.

“Uh… wh-what?” Shinji stutters, watching Asuka pull down her white surgical mask to reveal her smugly smirking face.

“I wanted to speak with you. Alone.” The two figures on either side of her don’t move, they standing almost statue still. Shinji is thoroughly un-chill at this point.

Was this some sort of trick? He tries to calm himself down, reason with himself that it is, and that he doesn’t see the figures. “Uh… we… aren’t alone."

“Huh? That’s news to me.” She puts her hands on her hips, leaning almost dramatically to one side, she phasing right through the figure to her left. Shinji is approaching dangerous levels of un-chill at this point.

The figure to her right shudders a bit, their shoulders shaking as the sound of a giggle permeates the air, and it’s like nothing he’s ever heard before. Whatever those things are, they definitely aren’t human. “A-Asuk-ka… th-they’r-re… st-tand-ding…”

The right figure suddenly moves up their arms to their face, letting out a echo-y, snarled laugh. After a few seconds, Asuka joins them, the left figure just putting a gloved hand on their forehead before turning away. “Oh, my god! You should see the look on your face!” Asuka laughs in between words, Shinji looking an even mixture of confused and violently horrified.

“The three of you are very callous towards Shinji, and I simply can not understand why.” Another voice starts to his right, he turning with his still shocked expression to see Mari and Kaworu leaning against an autopsy table, looking slightly bored.

“Well, sorry you can’t find any fun in making a fool out of the newbie, Nagisa.” She crosses her arms defensively as she says this, before turning back to Shinji. “Anyways, welcome to the fold, Ikari.”

Shinji looks between them, trying to somehow decipher a meaning to all this. “Wh-what the hell is going on?” He looks very afraid at this point, starting to move towards the door. The two figures that were on either side of Asuka suddenly turn back to him, their faces still not being visible behind their surgical masks.

The figure to Asuka’s left steps up, crossing their arms. “Isn’t it obvious? Huh? Do you have any idea what the Hell we are?”

The figure to her right pipes up, their hands held together behind their head. “Ahhh, don’t be so harsh on him Touji. He’s new,” The figure turns away from ‘Touji’, instead looking to Shinji while fiddling around with the strings of their mask, “Anyways… you really don’t know what we are?”

Shinji doesn’t respond, looking at Asuka when she points a particularly mischievous smirk at him. “They’re ghosts. And you can see them. You’re a freak, Shinji. Just like us."

Before she can continue, he turns and books it out of the room.


	6. Cardinal Contact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Hey, Shinji, where they hell’re you going?!” Mari shouts from the now open front doors of the mortuary, waving one arm in the dark in attempt to gain the fleeing figure’s attention. She squints once his form disappears into the dark, finally turning to the fiery haired figure next to her. “Urrgh, I told you this wouldn’t work Princess!”

Asuka just makes a quiet snorting noise, pulling down the surgical mask that was still over her face before crossing her arms and leaning back against one of the iced-over doors. “Well, that's his problem for now,” She sticks the tip of her tongue out a bit, squinting.

Mari gives off a little ‘pshaww’, swatting one hand around in a mock beckoning motion. “Well, don’t say I didn’t tell you so when he comes back and completely afraid of you,” She smirks with that common cat-like charm of hers, completely not expecting to be shoved quite roughly out of the way by a certain grey-haired figure who tears straight past her, sprinting full speed down the sidewalk in the direction Shinji went.

Asuka lets out a villainous growl, taking a step after him. “Hey, watch it Nagisa!” She turns back to Mari, tilting her head, “What was that?”

The bespeckled woman shrugs, fixing her glasses before once again being startled by a figure behind them both.

Misato looks at them both gravely, her phone gripped in her hand. “You two aren’t going to believe this...”

 

  

“No… no, no- _no!_ ”

A thick cloud of condensed breath passes from Shinji’s lungs as he continues to mutter to himself, the biting cold of chilled night air numbing his skin even through the jacket he was wearing. His feet make loud scraping noises against the snow veiled ground as he runs towards some unnameable goal, away from that- that place. His teeth chatter as he slips into a darkened alleyway, leaning back against one of the walls. Shinji slowly closes his eyes, letting in huge gasps of air as he struggles to calm his pulse. 

 _This isn’t real. There is no possible way that this is real._ Shinji grimaces at the feeling of his skull being pressed against the wall behind him, letting out another opaque breath from between clenched teeth as he tries to focus on slowing down and thinking critically about what was really going on. His cold body slides down the rough brick wall at his back, sitting on the ground and resting his head in his hands, fingers threading through his hair. _I’ve already been over this before. This is some cruel nightmare. I’m having some sort of psychotic break. This isn’t real because ghosts don’t exist._  

Eventually, his pulse slows to an acceptable pace, sweat beading down his brow. Shinji wipes it off with the sleeves of his jacket, the rest beginning to freeze on his scalp from the cold conditions around him. He presses his arms against the wall behind him and stands back up, opening his eyes to survey the alley around him.

The space Shinji was in looked to be a normal alleyway. A couple large, rusted trash bins rest against the walls of either building, they being filled to the brim with dark bags and other types of junk, all powdered with a thin layer of snow that had rained down from above. The occasional sounds of skittering mixed with the muted noise of cars somewhere in the far distance seemed to make the area almost calming, compared to… well, whatever the hell he had just experienced. Shinji’s frozen legs finally start to work as he exits the space, putting his hands in the pockets of his jacket as he crosses the snow-covered street.

Across the way from the dreary alley, there seemed to be a large park filled with dark and foreboding trees, each reaching up into the clouded sky with their thin, dark branches that grasp for the night like spindly fingers. A disused iron fence surrounds the park, the ominously tall gate sitting wide open before him. He doesn’t think too much of it, sulking into the area to just think for a while. If he’d be in this state forever, he might as well try and make some sort of sense to it…

Shinji raises his head to scan the area around him once he had wandered a bit further into the park, the frigid darkness tinging the area with the feeling of unease. He pulls his hands from his pockets to cross them across his chest, the horribly cold feeling that seeps through his shoes prickling through his body, his being turned numb throughout. He thinks bitterly on how his mental state matches his physical one, as if that was his only comfort to have some sort of homeostasis between body and soul, and how the heavy copper smell in the air was beginning to sting his eyes, and how the liquid that spatters across the ground was starting to seep into the cloth of his shoes, and how the plethora of mangled bodies around him looked so distraught yet so peaceful in the frozen night, as if made to be that way.

Shinji’s fingers dig into the upper portion of his arms, his wide eyes scanning the massacre before him and the unearthly stillness of it, the feeling of his heart lurching in horror as well as his stomach. His mind begins to spin as he steps back, unable to scream at the sight. The gentle noise of something somewhere around him cuts into him like a knife, the movement in the corner of his eye springing him into a sudden, head-spinning motion. The edges of his vision begin to fray as he stumbles to the side, one hand snaking up to his mouth while the other curls around his abdomen, his wide eyes looking to see something gazing back at him with red, fleshy eyes. Its figure in the dark was emaciated and vaguely human, long skeletal limbs curled around the trees nearby like spider’s legs. The visible texture of burns covers it's lanky expanse, parts of its skin such a deep and violent red in places that it appeared to be bleeding. The only visibly unburned portion of it's body appeared to be those _eyes_ , wide and unblinking. It's bulbous, fleshy head appeared to be heavily malformed, portions of it's skull pulsating and writhing. It’s 'mouth' hangs open, dripping a substance the man can only hope to not be the same blood that is covering the earth around him.

The mere presence of whatever that beast before him was seemed to weaken Shinji, his eyes watering as he falls to his knees. It seemed to judge him by the supposed gaze, it’s flashing eyes seeming to pick him apart piece by tiny piece until he was simply a heart laid bare, perfect prey for the menace now upon him. It shifts closer, extending a spindly, muscular arm in a flash of movement to knock him back into the bloodstained grass behind him, his head striking the ground with a resounding thump.

Shinji stares upwards, the breath knocked from him as he realizes that, yes, this will be the way he dies. There will be none to mourn over his grave once he is gone. The blood that had settled on the ground below him begins to soak into his clothes and hair, his own blood from the scratch that covers his shoulders mixing with it.

his head is beginning to feel so light, as if he was floating, the cold was getting there beginning so slowly to seep into his bones. it's dark outside the beast’s eyes beckon for the release of his soul to devour his body whole, it's ravaged form hovering above hhim with long fingers extending down towards his body. the scent of copper in his nostrils is nauseating to the p oint of nearly wretch ing, he feels a claw or something sharp dragged down his chest, his shoulder even. its painful but he cant bring himself to scream its too late hes accepted it. it d ra ws back the wide, malformed hand, raising t h e appendage to its face to ins p e c t the bblloooodd that dr i p s freely from the long, th in nails. an unffffeeling monster, and i t seemed to ssmMMile at the sight of it t. 

its getting so hard to se e now… hard to t h ink. .. the c old and b loo dd loss was get t t ing to him… it occurs to him that maybe this creature is an angel coming to deliver him from this Ḩ̤͚ ͍̻̼E̗͝ ͈͈͓L͎̱͞ ҉L̷̲̮ he had found himself in, something of a swweet merciful god that took pity on his state, both mental and physical. shinji does not spe ak, the knowledge that h e will soon g et out gi ving  hi m  a ll the peac e he needs no w. the creature pulls b a c k its    c law e d  ha nd   o nce   a ga in, the la s t seed of ac c eptance sown on his mind,  h is head tilts back a nd his eyes shut f o r that final t ime. and he waits. and waits.

and waits. he opens his e ye s, his neck making a creaking noise as he sh ifts to look back up, eyes met with night sky and the edges of tree branches. his ears were rin ging  so loudly, only the sense of vibrations somewhere around him beckoning to make him turn and look. in the dark, someone stands looking back at him. the muffled noise of someone speaking in the far distance, the person- no, the being of some kind now before him, the feeling of something behind his neck lifting him upwards. he can not speak. his vision flickers… the feeling of lethargy… dread… some great sadness hangs around his neck like a broken halo, though it surely isn’t his, but its feeling is so overwhelming that it eclipses his own emotions. his head falls backwards as he hears the sound of his own name, finally letting go.

 

  

… And yet, his body still holds on for dear life despite this. It feels almost mechanical to Shinji now, the action of waking up in strange places; places that don’t feel like any home he has ever known, places he would rather not visit. This time, the scent of some sort of cleaning product laces the air. Something like ammonia. The feeling of a cold, hard surface at his back. One of his arms rests across his stomach.

Through his closed eyelids, he can see… a light. It’s scathingly bright, and he scrunches his face in an attempt to block it out. His head throbs and, with a held back sigh, he finally opens his eyes, immediately blinking back tears from the sheer brilliance of it. Shinji raises his head, focusing, the room blurring before finally appearing to be… his eyes widens as he realizes he’s lying in what appears to be an autopsy room, the sight unnerving him. 

In a jolt, his body is startled into action. He begins to shift up, both hands tightening, before stopping as a sharp pain edges through him. Shinji stifles a whimper as he lies back down, feeling the tight bindings around his shoulders and chest. _Where am I?_ he asks himself for what seems like the twentieth time this month alone. Shinji tries to slow down his breathing before finally drawing in one final quaking breath, exhaling through his mouth. He closes his eyes, tilting his head back, the grip that his hands hold relaxing… or, at least it seems like it.

He opens his eyes in a squinty manner as he realizes something is gripped in his right hand; vaguely cylindrical, the feeling of a soft warmth throughout, the cool feeling of short, sharp nails against his skin… Shinji raises his head with twice the effort as before, gazing downwards to meet with a ruffled head of silvery grey hair. Shinji gets why he didn’t see him before. He seemed to be as sterile and white as the environment around them. He tilts his head slightly to see his hand tightly clasped around a paler, thinner one, moving the other’s hand out of his hold and setting it down gently. He wonders whether he did that himself or not, his fingers twitching when he notices the figure had moved.

Kaworu spreads his fingers out while cracking his knuckles, sniffling a bit. He blearily looks up before realizing he was being watched, turning to look at Shinji with a slightly incredulous look. “Oh… good morning, Shinji. Are you feeling any better?” His surprised look softens into a gentle smile, brushing his hair back into place and cradling the back of his neck with one hand. 

“Uh… I…,” Shinji tries to think back to the previous night, vaguely remembering something… it suddenly flashes back to him, eyes widening. Running… going into the park… the scent of blood… he puts a hand over his mouth, inhaling sharply. “Oh, oh god,” His heart rate suddenly spikes.

Shinji feels a gentle pressure on his shoulder, thin fingers pressing into the tense muscles there. He wordlessly slows his breathing again, shutting his eyes as he tries to wipe away the gory images that had planted themselves there. “Shinji, you are safe now. There is nothing to be afraid of…,” Kaworu starts, before the man below him tries to get up again with a hissed curse, pressing a hand against his own chest.

Blood. There was… blood on his hand. Shinji looks down to see a shirt that definitely wasn’t his, the white front of it spotted with drips of the red substance. “Shinji, please lie back down.”

“I… wh-what… how did I…”

“You were hurt very badly. Shikinami gave you stitches, and we had to take you back here for your own personal safety,” Kaworu scooches a bit further forwards, the pressure of his fingers releasing.  “Here. Katsuragi told me to give these to you when you woke up,” A more concerned smile crosses Kaworu’s face as he offers him two small pills and a cup of water. “She told me they were painkillers.”

Shinji looks over at the grey haired figure with wide eyes, his bloodied hand still gripping at the front of his shirt, before finally reaching out and taking the pills and water from his hand. After he takes them, he turns his eyes back down to the slightly dull metal surface of the autopsy table. Deluded thought clouds his brain as he glances back up to face towards the man's pale neck, not daring to meet that strangely warm gaze that was pointed in his direction. “K… Kaworu… what happened…?”

Kaworu places his hand palm-side down in front of Shinji, thin fingers scrunched together in an uncomfortable manner. “Do you wish for me to explain it in full, or would you like to have a more abridged version?”

Shinji kneads the palm of his hand against one of his eye sockets, lying back. “I don’t know, I… ,” The pain in his chest begins to subside, even as he feels something press down against his it. He opens his eyes, seeing Kaworu standing above him pressing a towel against the bleeding spot on his upper waist. “…What are you doing?”

“Bleeding is normal for stitches. However, if they do start to bleed, one should apply constant pressure onto them to clot blood quicker and still the bleeding,” Kaworu says, as if reciting it from some sort of medical text. Shinji wonders for a moment if he's even human, squinting up at him as the pressure gets to be almost painful, before he pulls back again and folds the towel in a neater square, pressing it into a different place. “Though Katsuragi does a much better job of describing situations in a manner that one would not call ‘blunt’, I can try my best.” He grins in a much brighter fashion, seeming proud of himself.

Shinji gives him a dull look, wincing again as he feels the painful pressure stretch through his chest again. Kaworu finally beginning his explanation, looking him in the eyes. “Last night, after you left the mortuary, Katsuragi informed us of sightings of a rare and particularly dangerous spirit prowling about the city due to multiple reports given by anonymous or otherwise non-living parties. I left immediately to come find you, while Makinami and Shikinami stayed behind to properly prepare to get rid of it. However, when I did find you… it was apparent that the reports were true,” He pulls his hands back, pressing the towel against Shinji’s shoulder. His expression flits somewhere between sadness and some level of pain, glancing away for an almost imperceptible moment before it's covered with a smile. “I can tell you now that the beast was still there at my time of arrival. I managed to fend it off, though I was also worse for ware after doing so. The other two came only a few minutes later, and after realising the situation, brought you back here instead of to the hospital.”

Kaworu sets down the towel next to him before reaching to the hem of his grey, long sleeved shirt, pulling it up to reveal a large gauze dressing wrapped around his midriff. There were smaller scratches around it’s cloth edge, which were patched with smaller more versatile bandages.

The dark haired figure gazes at the bandaged wounds, still trying to metabolize the statement that was just told to him. When he turns his gaze back up to the other’s face, red eyes lock to his, and there is something behind them Shinji can’t quite decipher, but one thing seemed to be eclipsing all other emotions; truth. Shinji was sure of it, now… he was telling the truth. An intimately silent air builds between them, seeming less tense and more like a wordless conversation. Kaworu breaks it, though not in a rude way. “You seem cold. Here…,” He says as he turns around to pick up a large, old looking jacket. The faded blue of the outer fabric was offset by silvery metal buttons, rubbed to a strangely dull yet still radiant shine. “Take this. It will help, surely,” He punctuates with a warm smile, unlike the unsure facade he was wearing earlier.

“But… aren’t you cold?” Shinji suddenly speaks, looking at the simple garment the other was wearing. 

“I am alright. And, do not worry about returning it. Your other jacket did not exactly come out in one piece either,” Kaworu sets it across Shinji’s lap, that true smile sticking all the while. An unfamiliar feeling resonates within his chest at his contact with it, reaching out to take it. He inspects the worn object, holding it as if with a clench of his fists he might rip it to shreds. It seemed so old, almost ancient. Shinji wonders about the experiences of it’s been through, the stories that must be contained in the woven blue textile. Or… maybe he was just overthinking it. He pulls the jacket on over his shoulders, sliding his arms into the thick sleeves. Perfect fit.

“Th-thank you, Kaworu,” Shinji breathes, turning back to the figure at his right. Kaworu smiles back in a more beatific manner before offering him a hand, long fingers spreading in an inviting manner. 

“Come now, Katsuragi will want to see you. She stayed here all night running files on what you saw, and needs an eyewitness report on it from someone other than me,” Kaworu speaks charmingly, curling his hand around Shinji’s as their hands make contact. He puts one hand behind the smaller man’s shoulders, helping him stand up. Shinji’s bare feet make contact with with the tile floor, his toes curling at the frigid feeling of it. The whole room was so cold… Kaworu releases the grip on his shoulders, though his hand still holds tightly to the other’s. 

Just as Shinji begins to right himself, the door to the autopsy room creaks open. In the doorway, a very frazzled, half-asleep looking Misato half-leans against the door, there being a good amount of manila folders and a thick packet of sticky noted sheets held under her arms, and in each hand she holds a steaming cup of coffee. She hobbles in, apparently not even seeing Shinji or the being before him. “Hey, Kawo’, you think you could…,” She yawns mid-sentence, setting the two cups on the end of the autopsy table Shinji used to be lying on. “Sorry, sorry… you think you could run these Angel files for awhile? See if anything interesting sticks out, since you know…-!!” Misato’s frazzled form suddenly jerks a bit, realizing the very much conscious figure before her. The sticky note filled folder drops from under her arm, scattering pages along the ground. “Oh- jeeze, sorry! Good morning, Shinji.” 

Shinji straightens at her sudden presence, watching her cast around for the lost sheets that were now covering the floor. “O-oh, good morning. Here, let me help-” He begins to lean over but stops when another sharp pain passes through his chest. Right. Kaworu gives him a look and releases his hand, kneeling down and picking up almost all the sheets before Misato can even get two or three. He leafs through them absentmindedly as Shinji steals a glance over his shoulder. He catches the sight of a bright red stamp with an unfamiliar acronym at the top and not much else. Kaworu gives them back to her, a more flatlined yet contented look on his face. Misato takes them back before looking to Shinji again, holding the sheets with both hands.

“Are you feeling well now? I trust Asuka did a good job with piecing you back together,” Misato smirks, taking one hand from the sheets to fix the collar of her red jacket. She looks back down to the papers, using the index finger of the hand she was using to hold them to troll through them.

Shinji leans against the table with one hand, still not entirely trusting his legs to keep him held up just yet. “I-I feel much better now, th-thank you,” He gives off a weak smile, trying to straighten his shoulders in at least a slightly presentable manner. Misato continues to leaf through the sheets before finally stopping at one marked with a bright orange note, something being written on it though he couldn’t yet make out the words.

“That's good. Here, I’d like you to take a look at this…,” Misato looks back up and offers the sheet to him, Shinji taking it with his free hand. He spins it around in his hand and begins to absorb it. It… appeared to be a police document, dated yesterday. He could almost smell the freshly printed ink on the page, the picture presented at the center being slightly smeared yet still decipherable. It depicted a park, filled with tall trees. In a clearing below them… no, not any clearing. Shinji’s eyes widen as he realizes what he’s looking at. The scene of the crime. Though… this was no way that this could be the same scene as last night. Not a single body was in the frame of the shot.

He slowly scans the page for something else before turning to look at the note stuck to the top of the page, the phrase ‘YOUR EYES ONLY’ scratched onto it in blocky letters. His eyes trace down before making contact with the red stamp that scrawls itself across the top of the page. Written in bright red block lettering is another phrase, it seeming stylized and modern.

“ **Investigative Unit:**

 **N.E.R.V.** ”

“How did you… wh-where…,” Shinji’s grip tightens on the page, his palms clammy as he looks to the rest of it, trying desperately to keep some sort of professional stature to himself. “Wh… who _are_ y-you?” He suddenly feels himself speak without really meaning to, not entirely knowing his meaning himself. Misato looks back at him with a deadly serious gaze, her entire demeanor changing.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t tell you sooner. It was for both the safety of ourselves and you that we didn’t immediately divulge the true nature of the Mortuary.” Misato reaches out and takes the sheet from his hand, setting it down on the table.

Shinji’s eyes waver at Misato’s form before him. He felt nauseous and lightheaded from the amount of information he was getting. He had been doing so much fainting lately… it’s remarkable he hasn’t gotten a concussion yet, he realizes, his palm pressed shakily against the surface of the table to keep him upright. He hopes he wouldn’t again.

“… I should explain myself now, right? Sorry if I came on too strong, we just don’t get too many new recruits here often so I’m a bit out of practice,” Misato offers, drawing back. “Investigative Unit: N.E.R.V. is a multinational police program that specializes specifically in investigations having to do with **n** on-living, **e** thereal, **r** evenant, or otherwise **v** isitant beings. We use our abilities to aid in the analysis and eventual resolution of crimes,” She looks down for a second before reaching towards her lower back, unclipping something from her belt and bringing it forwards. An ornate silver badge with the words ‘Special Investigator’ sits in her palm, her thumb smoothing over it’s scratched surface.

“Due to your experiences in the past, as well as your ability to see ghosts, you are prime candidate to join the N.E.R.V. program.” Shinji finally looks her in the eyes as she says this, startled by her forwardness. She wanted him to join the police…? After inhaling deeply and steeling himself, he lifts his hand off of the table and stands on his own two feet. 

“I… I don’t know. I-I don’t think I’m capable enough to do something like this, and this is so out of the blue…,” Shinji lowers his eyes back to the ground, staring at his reflection in the floor tiles, before the feeling of someone watching him invades his mind. He turns to see Kaworu looking back at him, such a trusting gaze on his face that he shakes with how much feeling is behind it. Something within him begins to grow, tightening from deep within his chest. It felt like fear… no, nothing like that. He was so used to feeling fear, so used to being afraid and running away from things. This was new. A feeling of courage spreads through him, something he hadn’t dared feel in such a long time. “I’ll… try.” He raises his face to look at Misato, a new feeling of determination in his heart.

The woman smiles back, offering a hand. “Welcome to the Unit, Shinji Ikari.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a while hasn't it?  
> well, in the meantime, I should probably divulge why I haven't posted in so long. very recently, i was diagnosed with severe depression and general anxiety. not so much of a surprise to me. however, before I knew those things, i was generally feeling really lost and alone. I decided to take a break from writing for a while to focus more on school, though that didn't help my grades much. it hurt them more than anything. with this recent diagnosis, though, I can finally get medication that hopefully will change my situation for the better. for now, though, update days will still be on wednesday, though not every other week. it might take me a while to get them out.
> 
> see you next chapter! -H


	7. Depth of the Darkness, Heart of the Heart

And so it fell into place. This profession, something unfamiliar, something achingly new, thrust upon Shinji Ikari in what feels like record time. Such uncertainties make his heart ache with anxiety, though he quells it down with a smile as Misato asks him to follow her.

“Due to the nature of what attacked you, the Angel as we call it, we need you to stay at a secure location until the situation is resolved. Once we get there, I’ll go and collect any belongings you need from your apartment,” She ushers, leading Shinji out of the autopsy room and into the main hall, trekking to the front desk. Kaworu follows close behind, giving Shinji a kind smile when he turns back to look at him.

They stare at eachother for an uncertain amount of time, only turning away when they hear the jangle of metal-on-metal. Misato holds up a keychain with a collection of keys on it, as well as a star-shaped charm, “I’ll drive you two there.”

 

—

 

It was very, very early in the morning, from what Shinji could tell, the vague glow of the rising sun off between tall buildings. It was muggy and damp out, thought the chill of winter still had its hold on the area. Dirty drifts of snow were still stacked between the sidewalks and streets, the colour of asphalt and disappointment.

The drive to this ‘secure location’ was rather calm, despite the cramped conditions the three of them were in on the way there. The vehicle they took there was owned by Misato, it being a small vintage sports car with minimal back seat space. Despite the fact that the front passenger seat was empty, both Shinji and Kaworu had packed themselves in back, on Shinji’s part because sitting in the front seat while Kaworu was confined to the back alone wasn’t prefered to him, while Kaworu simply insisted on giving it up to him.

When they arrived, Shinji was greeted with the sight of fluorescent lights and stained concrete. They had pulled into what appeared to be a rather large parking garage, it being nearly completely empty other than some cars and what looked to be a motorbike covered in old, dusty tarps. Misato leads them to the back of the garage and through a metal door that looked heavy enough to crush someone if they weren’t careful, they turning down a brightly lit corridor to where two elevator doors sit. They wait idly after Misato hits the call button, not saying a word until Shinji breaks the silence.

“So… what can you tell me about this ‘secure location’?” He looks to Misato, who glances back to him with a quickly constructed smile. He fidgets idly with his hands, looking to Kaworu who seemed lost in thought, eyes focused into the far distance. Shinji leans over and touches the back of his hand, effectively breaking him out of it despite the surprised jolt the other gives. Kaworu turns to him and gives a relieved sigh, though something frighteningly unsure is held behind it. Shinji does not comment.

Misato idly taps her foot, looking at the scratched metal doors and not witnessing the two to her right. “Well, I can assure you you’ll be in no danger there. You can leave any time you want, as long as you have one of us with you just in case. You’ll only have to stay here one week at the least, though it could be longer depending on the severity of the problem,” A distant, worldly shudder makes her turn her head, though she quickly dismisses it. The rattle of the elevator opening in front of them seemed to effectively diffuse the tense situation. They file into the cramped space, Misato opening a plastic panel next to the now closed doors and inputting a code, before pressing another button, labeled ‘66’. Shinji could only assume at a glance that meant… the 66th floor?

The elevator makes a rumbling noise before beginning its ascent, the ground feeling as if it pulled out from under them from how fast they were rising. Shinji’s eyes widen when one of the walls of the lift opens to reveal the city, now far below. They could see nearly everything from their new vantage point behind the glass, brightly lit streets ranging from the wider main ones to the thinner alleyways visible. He grips the handle behind him as it all disappears, it all being obscured by thick clouds. Frost was caked onto the edges of the outside window, crawling in towards the center. The world darkens for a beat before Shinji is met with a surreal sight, his hands falling loosely from the pole behind him while a shuddered exhale passes his lips. The top of the skyscraper seemed to go above the clouds, as were all of the others in the city. An ocean of clouds was now below them as the elevator slows to a steady halt.

The doors open to his right, and he shakily exits behind the other two, anxious about being up so dizzyingly high. They appeared to be in a much more fancy hallway, now, the walls lined with blueish-black wallpaper and the floor a shiny sort of dark concrete. Pale lights alongside the four doors give it an oddly radiant shine, despite being so dark.

Shinji walks cautiously behind them, his skin prickling in apparent fear, though he tried his hardest to quell it with thoughts of hope; he would be safe here. He tries to breathe slower once they stop in front the backmost door, Misato knocking on it.

The entire hallway was dead silent. Shinji swore he could hear his muscles moving as he raises his arms to wrap around his stomach, eyes searching the dark wooden door for some kind of movement. The distant sound of feet against floor becomes louder before the door finally opens.

Asuka looks at the three with narrowed eyes after poking her head out, her hair bedraggled and messy despite being pulled back in a barret. She rubs one of her eyes before opening the door fully, looking to be wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants and a red tank top. “God, just… get in already.” She grumbles, followed by a yawn as she stretches her back out with a few loud snaps, stepping out of the doorway to let them through. Misato leads, with Shinji coming next and Kaworu close behind.

That is, however, until he feels a strong and unerring hand on his chest, keeping him from walking forwards, “Shinji fucking Ikari, what the hell are you wearing.” It was Asuka, and as he turns to look at her, her face had solidified into a hard glare, nearly hateful.

“U-uh…” Shinji was legitimately scared, glancing around before looking back at Kaworu, who was smiling widely.

“Kaworu, what the fuck is he wearing this for?” Asuka gestures widely at his whole body, and Shinji looks down in the process, not noticing anything out of the ordinary.

“Well, Shikinami, he appears to be wearing a shirt, a jacket, some jeans, two socks, boxers, and-”

“Nagisa, you know what I'm talking about, damn it!” Asuka growls in a stern voice.

The synapses in Shinji's brain finally decide to go off, and he puts two and two together. “Asuka, d-do you mean this jacket? I, uh, I needed something to wear and Kaworu let me borrow it. Is it yours?”

“Yes, Asuka. I lent it to him. I gave it to him, actually, so it's his now,” Kaworu tilts his head and smiles at her, “Shinji, don't worry, it's yours.”

Asuka looked absolutely awestruck, looking Shinji up and down and then back to Kaworu. “Kaworu. Kaworu, are you saying-” Asuka looked like she was about to either tear Kaworu's head off, or sweep him up in a hug and swing him around. She looks back to Shinji, eyes searching him before she speaks again, “Shinji, go inside. We need to talk for a sec, okay?” Asuka looked like she was on the verge of tears, and Shinji had no choice but to comply.

Asuka closes the door as Shinji passes through its threshold, turning towards the wall and away from Kaworu. “Are you going to explain yourself?” She says flatly, biting her lower lip and shutting her eyes in an attempt to keep herself together.

“Asuka, listen. I did not want to tell you until the time was right,” Kaworu shakes his head, “I really am sorry, okay? I had to make sure before I-”

“Like hell you did!” Asuka whips around, her hands clenching at her sides as tears trickled down her cheeks, “You knew from the second you first saw him, didn't you?! You fucking knew!” She steps up to him and grabs the front of his shirt, pulling him in close as she grits her teeth.

Kaworu looks down at her, his expression flatlined. “Maybe I did. Asuka, you can not expect me to tell you everything as it happens. We do not have the same relationship that we did five years ago,” Kaworu steps back from her, bringing his hand up to gently unhook hers from the front of his shirt, “We were close, surely, but never that close. You knew as soon as I told you about my past that we never would.”

Asuka stares at him, breathing hard. “So, what? Just because we never fucked doesn't mean you can't tell me when stuff like this happens! It's not like you did that with him, either! I told you months before I got married to Mari, even when I wasn't even sure it would work out!” Asuka shouts into his face, getting not even a flinch out of him before continuing, “You've probably never even gotten that close to him, have you? I don't understand why you even like someone so patheti-” She growls, stepping in closer before she suddenly freezes, eyes widening.

Kaworu looks her in the eyes, gaze fierce and violent despite the tears pouring down his face. He clenches his lower jaw, a solid crackle resonating from his fists as he tightens them past the point his joints could handle. “You don't want to finish that sentence, Langley,” Kaworu steps forwards, and Asuka stumbles back as a wave of terror passes over the entire area, the hall light closest to them flickering, “You know exactly what I am capable of. Do not push me to that point. Do not talk about him that way.”

Asuka stares at him, quickly rubbing her eyes and taking a step towards him. “We both know that I'm the only one who trusts you,” Asuka turns away, shutting her eyes and trying to quell the shivers that still cover her skin, “If you do shit to me because of him, you're gone. Don't break that trust.” With that, she opens the door and goes inside, shutting it behind her and leaving Kaworu alone in the hallway.

 

—

 

_This safehouse seems to be more like a penthouse than anything_ , Shinji thinks as he looks around, impressed by what Asuka had invited them into. Misato and Shinji were standing in a large, dark room with tall ceilings, though it was faintly lit by the windows that nearly surround it. The apartment was lavishly decorated as well, ranging from a large seating area in the center of the room to a beautiful kitchen in one corner, the backsplash being the same view they had seen in the elevator.

“Wow…” Shinji manages after a silent minute, attracting Misato’s attention.

“Yeah. I never get used to it either,” Misato smiles, “This is actually Mari and Asuka’s place, though neither of their names are on the lease. One of Mari’s uncles or aunts got this for her, I think?” Misato shrugs, sitting down with an exhausted sigh, looking back at him, “Make yourself at home, I guess. It'll be a while before the Sun rises, so I'm sure they'll lend you one of the spare rooms.”

Shinji hums as he looks up and around at the vaulted ceilings, not exactly listening to her. He hadn't really ever felt at home anywhere he had been before, but there was something about this place… he doesn't have much time to think about it before the front door opens.

Glancing over his shoulder, he sees Asuka walk in and shut the door loudly behind her, rubbing her eyes while walking across the living room. “Asuka? What's wrong?” Shinji asks as she walks by him, he managing to catch a glimpse of her face. Her mouth was coiled up into a vicious scowl, eyes burning and bloodshot.

“Nothing, Ikari,” She grits, stopping a few feet away with her back turned to him.

“A-are you sure?” Shinji asks, not getting an immediate response, so he continues, “Was it something Kaworu said…?”

Asuka turns around, absolutely fuming. “It was what that bastard son of a bitch didn't say!” She shouts, causing Shinji to flinch back considerably.

“Asuka!” Misato interjects, walking over to her and putting a hand on Shinji's shoulder, “Enough of this. We can talk in the morning.”

Asuka stops, glaring at her, before looking at Shinji. “Know this, Ikari. You aren't going to take him away from me, no matter what. Got that?” She sneers at him, before turning and walking away. Shinji stands completely still for a few seconds before exhaling, turning to Misato.

“I’m… sorry that I got in the middle of things. A-are they dating or something?” Misato shakes her head, watching Asuka leave.

“No, it's fine. Also, no, they aren't dating,” Misato walks back over to the couch, sighing as she flops down onto it, “Actually, I’m surprised you haven't noticed already. Asuka and Mari are married, and have been for three years now. I’ll just… keep more technical stuff until the morning.”

“Oh. Well, uh,” Shinji looks at her, “I guess I’ll just stick to the couch then. Are you staying here tonight?”

Misato laughs, “Oh, no. I gotta keep working. I’ll see you all in the morning, though.” She smiles, and Shinji timidly returns it as she turns and walks out the front door, stopping to wave at him before disappearing. Shinji keeps up appearances until he knows Misato is gone, his shoulders slumping and his hand resting on his forehead as he lies down horizontally on the couch, kicking off his shoes and curling forwards into a fetal position.

Staring into the penetrating dark, his mind wanders and wavers as exhaustion leeches into him, his body going slack before he falls into a deep sleep.

 

 

_‘Wake up.’_

_Shinji opens his eyes and sees nothing. For a split second, he thinks it’s just that the Sun hadn’t risen yet, until he realizes the featureless black around him was completely silent._

_‘Why are you here?’_

_The voice sounds familiar. Like a soft, cool breeze. Shinji turns, a vague looking figure standing a couple meters away from him. He steps back, his foot making contact with the ground without a single noise._

_‘Shinji. Shinji, why are you here?’_

_The voice was coming from all around him, piercing through as if he was just smoke. He tries to speak, but as the air passes his lips, the sound of his voice is swallowed by the dark._

_‘I don’t want you to be afraid of me. Don’t look at me.’_

_Shinji tries to look around, tries to reach out and touch something, and he does. His hand presses into a hot, rough patch of what feels like human skin, though his hand passes straight into it as if it was only a thin sheet over a thick, coagulated material that slithers between his fingers. He pulls his hand back, but not before he feels a hand grab his arm in a tight, thin-fingered grip._

_‘You idiot.’_

_This voice sounds different. It sounds frighteningly hot, burning at him like a solar flare. A sudden pressure around his wrist makes him gasp as he tries to pull his hand back, only to be stopped by a intensely painful sensation as his wrist is dislocated._

_‘YOU IDIOT!’_

_Shinji feels himself scream as the skin around his lower arm tears, he trying to pull back as his elbow splinters. The body before him starts to glow, lit from within like an ember. The vaguely feminine shape illuminated by its own light wrenches him forward, the hand around his wrist heating up with an immense flash of pain. His lower arm is completely torn off, he staggering back as an unfathomable agony races through his body._

_‘Asuka!’_

_It’s bad, so bad, Shinji grinds his teeth as he falls to his knees, gripping at the leftover skin that hangs from the giant hole in his body as he sobs in sheer horror. The figure before him suddenly bursts into flames, her burned and disfigured face wreathed in a mane of bright orange fire while her eye sockets pour flames of cobalt blue._

_‘I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, you fucking pile of garbage! I hope you die! You’re a fucking freak!’_

_Shinji crumples forwards as he completely loses control, his body convulsing as he goes into shock._

_‘I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!!!’_

_Shinji has a second to register this before her burning foot comes down on his head, killing him instantly._

_‘Shinji.’_

_There’s a presence at his side. He isn’t sure how he knows this, due to being dead, but he can clearly feel a hand placed on his back._

_‘Shinji. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please don’t leave me. Don’t leave me again. I can’t take this, I can’t take losing you.’_

_He’s crying. The voice is crying at his side, as his body moves and he picks up what’s left of his lower jaw and neck, turning towards the voice._

_An impossible creature of writhing flesh crouches there, lit by the flaming woman at his side. Hundreds of arms holding its mammoth weight being joined by thousands of different faces, second only in number to the millions of eyes that spatter it’s horrible, fetal white flesh. Millions of red, red eyes. And all of those eyes focused on him._

_‘Kaworu.’_

 

 

 

“Kaworu.”

The name passes his lips like a breath, eyes trained on the ceiling. He’s crying. It doesn’t hurt anymore, but there is still pain. The world filters in around him, and sounds press down on his body like a pillow over his face, so unused to physical noise and light that his body tremors and his eyes flicker.

Looking around, he’s still on the couch in Asuka and Mari’s house, vague swaths of light dancing above him. As he sits up, keen on the pain in his neck from sleeping in such a position, his body is wrenched up on its own accord. He needed air, fresh air. Water, maybe, but he needed to go outside. Standing with a crack of his knees, Shinji scans his surroundings before spotting what looked to be a patio door, the glass being frosted over to prevent a view outside. With stumbling feet he grabs his shoes before walking over and opening it, stepping into the frigid morning air.

_Well, at least I have space to walk around,_ Shinji thinks as he looks around the giant patio, easily being large enough to fit fifty or so people more than comfortably. It was complete with what looked to be a hot tub, a bar, and a pool which goes right up to the edge of the balcony. Everything was covered in a thin layer of snow and the pool had a sheet of ice over it, but the sky was at least clear and the Sun shines in its morning position.

Pacing around, Shinji thinks for a long while about his nightmare, and how incredibly lucid it felt. He could almost still feel the flames licking at his skin, or the breath of hundreds of mouths chilling his spine. His feet crunch into the snow, until he finally stops at the edge, resting his hand on the glass barrier that surrounds its perimeter. The city bustles below, mostly silent from this height, though honks and sirens still manage to permeate the air. Sound still felt unreal to him, when compared to his silent nightmare, his ears sensitive to the slightest wind as it whispers past his ear.

It only makes the loud, glass-like crack more startling when it does happen. Shinji whips his head back to the bay windows that seemed to all still be intact, before his eyes were drawn to the surface of the pool. A large crack had formed down its length, and an amorphous shape slithers beneath the surface before taking a sharp turn, another crack forming in front of it. It takes him a few seconds to realize this shape, this creature, whatever it was, had arms and legs, it had a head sat atop shoulders. It was, undeniably-

Shinji yelps in shock as it swims over to the edge of the pool, a massive shatter appearing as it hits the ice with a frightening amount of force. Two arms reach out of the water, followed by a head which coughs loudly, sputtering out water as it grips the edge of the pool.

With one hand, he swipes soaking wet hair from his face and wipes water from his eyes, opening them and focusing immediately on Shinji.

“Good morning... Shinji.” Kaworu gurgles with water-filled lungs, a smile on his bluish-purple lips, wiping chunks of ice from his necrotic, purple-veined skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy spooky day fuckers im BACK  
> It’s been over a year since I’ve updated this story, and it only seemed fitting to do so on Halloween. I’ll hopefuly be working on this story more as the year goes on. See you next update!


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